


Y Is For Y Not

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Daniel Jackson Needs A Hug, Daniel Jackson Would Depress A Hyena, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s09e13 Ripple Effect, Gen, POV Daniel Jackson, darkish fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: Daniel looks down at his hands.  Scrubbed and manicured, French cuffs, discreet cuff-links, shark-grey designer suit and very shiny shoes.  He wonders which avatar of Daniel-ness he is: the lunatic, the lover, or the poet?On his way to a post-"Ripple Effect" debriefing, Daniel wonders about a lot of things.





	Y Is For Y Not

**Author's Note:**

> So I went for a second letter in the Quantum Alphabet Soup (you knew I would, right?) I'm not sure how to categorize this, since AO3 apparently doesn't have a "sometimes Daniel would depress a hyena" tag. But here we are.
> 
> I have no idea where this came from or where it would go from here, but it probably means it is not a good idea to read Synecdochic and Paian in the same morning...

Daniel Jackson is sitting in the passenger cabin of a military transport flying at 30,000 feet.

Daniel Jackson is living on Abydos with his wife and children.

Daniel Jackson died on Apophis's battleship. On Kelowna. On (in) a Replicator spaceship. On a dozen planets whose algorithms all blend together in his mind, a meaningless jumble of numbers and letters.

Daniel Jackson was never born.

Daniel Jackson has, is, and will be doing these things and many more. The number of things he is doing, and the number of people he will become, propagates exponentially across the multiverse. Except in those where he is dead, of course (probably), and even there the branching continues—God is a Redditor—but he isn't involved.

It's depressing. It's exhausting. It's the reason he's flying to Washington, because the head of Homeworld Security needs to be updated on the SGC's latest exciting adventure, and Daniel is best-placed to do it (he wants a vacation). He might have been called upon to do it sooner, but Congress takes its year-end holidays seriously. (And a happy 2006 is not to be had by all.)

When you think of "military transport" you think of exposed bulkheads and cargo nets. They have names like Galaxy, Pegasus, Starlifter (the US Air Force has a sense of whimsy, who knew?) This particular transport (however) is barely distinguishable from a private jet: beige bulkheads, neutral carpet, leather seats. The back half of the cabin holds a bar and a conference table (and a potty). The front half contains four rows of seats, each of which can swivel 360 degrees.

The tray-table in front of him holds a crystal tumbler with two fingers of Scotch. It's as pale as Russian amber because all the ice has melted. In the seat nearest the cockpit, an airwoman sits primly, awaiting his next request. Daniel looks down at his hands. Scrubbed and manicured, French cuffs, discreet cufflinks, shark-grey designer suit and very shiny shoes. He wonders which avatar of Daniel-ness he is: the lunatic, the lover, or the poet? It hardly matters, because be he any or all of them, he's also the public face of Disclosure (whenever it comes). The increasing pressure to take a desk job is irritating, but from the viewpoint of The Powers That Be, it's reasonable: should Doctor Jackson get himself killed during one of his happy-go-lucky jaunts to save the universe, their second runner-up will not be nearly as soothing to the American public. Or the Anywhere Else public, because nobody likes to hear that their government gave a war and didn't invite them. (This is probably why, in three out of the five universes where Disclosure has already happened, Earth is being run by a global military dictatorship. In one of the others, the Wraith have invaded. The last of the five is close to being an Earthly paradise—if you leave out the fact that the _Tau'ri_ Empire is on a collision course with the Free Jaffa and the two powers will clash sometime within the next decade.)

Daniel thinks of the impoverished grad student he once was; the starving professor (the multi-millionaire author of "ancient aliens" bestsellers, motivated not by experience or scholarship but by an eye for human gullibility). In those ancient (but not Ancient) days he would have snarled about the military-industrial complex, the society that so often chooses neither guns nor butter but instead the dumbing-down of its captive populace. Doctor Daniel Jackson, champion of Truth, Justice, and...

Well, Truth and Justice, anyway. Maybe. The only thing the last decade has really taught him is that Truth is shifting sand and Justice is impossible. (Mercy is overrated and comes back to bite you in the ass.) They're probably all just as well off that he didn't know that when he first went to Abydos: they'd all still be there.

Dan'yel of the _Tau'ri_ still lives on Abydos with his wife (Beloved!) and children. Daniel Jackson never met Catherine Langford; she recruited her niece Sabrina instead and sent her to Abydos. Daniel Jackson's body rules the _Goa'uld_ Empire, and Great Lord Ra gazes out through his eyes.

So. Washington. At least Jack can be counted upon to make the inevitable "Evil Mirror Me" jokes. At least there's that. But after that is going to come the extensive and inevitable debriefing (alone and in praise chorus), because each of these Roads Not Taken provides both hints and cautionary tales about how to handle their own future. Or futures. Whatever. Daniel finds it increasingly difficult to care, especially in the wake of absolute proof that no matter when and where and how he (his friends, his enemies, Earth, the Universe) dies, there are uncounted other universes in which they go on. (If the Ascended were aware of this—and they undoubtedly are—it goes a long way toward explaining their infuriating detachment. Who cares about one anthill when there are a billion more?)

He can't really be upset by knowing about all the possibilities. At some level, he's known them since his longest death. Once his feet were shod in stardust and he danced to the music of the spheres. (It's not that he chose to come back—which he didn't—but that his new peers disapproved of research methods. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, Selah.)

Homeworld Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are amazingly indifferent to possibilities that they consider irrelevant. Even Jack (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers) isn't really very interested in the inapplicable theoretical. What Jack is willing to discuss over a few drinks and what Jack makes a part of his working day are often poles (worlds, light-years, universes) apart. In the end, the vast sweep of human possibility that occupies Daniel's thoughts is reduced to a simple set of questions: _What can we spend our budget on, and how can we get a larger budget to spend?_ (Staying alive to acquire and spend said budget is presumed to be a given, all evidence to the contrary.) At the moment, those persons in the know are interested in exactly three things: The Ori, the Lucian Alliance, and Disclosure. The chance to talk about any matter outside those three subjects is going to be a really hard sell, whether or not Daniel knows there are things that are more important—if not more urgent—and whether or not Daniel thinks it's worth the trouble to try to persuade them.

(There are beautiful planets out there. Serene, untouched, paradisiacal. A three-star general could surely get permission to go and look, if only Daniel could talk him into it. They could bring along some friends; make it a really big party. Jack is the stalking horse. Daniel is the tethered goat. They've got a whole imaginary menagerie right here, just waiting for someone to draw a lion in the sand.)

He glances out the cabin window (cabin'd, crib'd, confin'd). Far below, the untrammeled sweep of the Great Plains appears through peepholes in the intercessory clouds. It's interesting to see how uninhabited the landscape looks, even though the world is said to be grappling with the tragedy of overpopulation and all its attendant horrors. He wonders how many of Earth's poor and starving would leave for otherwhere if migration were as simple as walking through a doorway. He wonders if the landscape below him would be changed at all if they did.

He's doing his best to distract himself. Daniel knows that. The briefing he is yet to give had been prepared within his mind even before the problem that led to its necessity had been solved. He's always been a quick thinker. (And nothing sharpens the mind so much as the possibility of extinction.) The trouble is, the news from the multiverse is bad. No one is doing any better than they are here against the Ori. (Many of them are doing far worse.) The best he can offer up is a catalogue of dead end strategies. Maybe it will be enough to save their reality. (Maybe not.) The same goes for the Lucian Alliance, successor in interest to the _Goa'uld_ Empire: in every universe where the _Tau'ri_ and the Alliance are aware of each other, their relationship is adversarial. It doesn't matter if Cameron Mitchell started the war, or if Earth was pulled into it because of its alliance with the _Tok'ra,_ or if the Alliance simply doesn't like competition: they're at war. And the enemy has more soldiers, more ships, and possession of the ultimate high ground. (What it doesn't have is true organization, which is why the multiverse of SGCs still have Gate Teams to send across the universe.)

That leaves Door Number Three.

It's very depressing—really very depressing, actually—to think that he's living in the best of all possible worlds. At least of the ones he knows about, which (adding in those he experienced before last week) is just about two dozen. Logic and physics both indicate that far more exist. Surely, in one of those, things are better than here?

Doesn't matter. "Here" is what he's got to work with, providing reports and advisories glimpsed through the looking-glass. Now, when it's too late, he contemplates the possibility of something he wouldn't have done anyway: in an infinity of Daniel Jacksons, what difference would it have made if one, or two, or a dozen of them switched places? It would give the problems he (they) face the illusion of novelty, at least. Perhaps he did. Who's to say? Daniel thinks he remembers standing at the foot of the ramp watching the last of his doubles pass through the Gate, but his memory has been more than a little pliable since he took up dying as a hobby. With a little work, he can probably convince himself he was the one on the ramp, and this is some other Eden.

Medieval theologians wondered how many angels could dance on a pin, as if the answer to that could make any difference to their vision of the world. On the other hand, perhaps it would have. Who knows? That's the real question that has to be asked: _Who knows?_ (And its streetwise cousin, _Cui Bono?_ aka, "What's in it for me?") And here they are again, back to the eternal truth. The only interest is self-interest, and self-interested people are rarely interested in anything else.

He sips his Scotch. In another hour they'll be wheels-down at Bolling (soon to become Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling, so saith the rumor-mill; Jack's idea of small-talk can be military and labyrinthine). Another hour more and he'll be at the Pentagon. Preliminary debrief. _Daniel, how ya doin? I leave, and look at the mess you get yourself into. Well, whadda we got?_

And the answer is never going to change. _I've got nothing, Jack._ Possessions, inspiration, hope. Empty hands and empty pockets. No Plan B. In the cosmology of second acts and second chances, Daniel has at last become an atheist. The trick is not to let anyone know. (They won't take it at all well.)

The clouds have vanished, and the landscape outside his window has sprouted cities; vast sprawling urbanisms that spill into one another like water (like blood), and which (if this were night) light up the darkness like branching arteries, a simulacrum of the metacosm (macro meet micro meet meta). They'll be landing soon. Jack will know everything the moment he sees him, but Jack's greatest strength has always been forgetfulness.

 _("I'm the opposite. I'll never forgive myself. But sometimes I can forget... Sometimes.")_

Jack will pretend to know nothing, will coax declarative statements out of Daniel, will shuffle them like a magician's deck of cards, willing them into a more sanguine sanguinary order. And thus they will be presented to the other featured players: fiats accompli and deii ex machina, and really, guys, it's not as bad as it looks, we've got some good ideas going here.

Ideas, maybe, but not answers. (It will probably be time, soon, to admit, if only to himself, that he knows how this hand plays out. Aces and eights, Dead Man's Hand, and it's no surprise, because it hasn't been a surprise for a very long time.)

Perhaps he's come to Washington not to make a report, but to say goodbye. No one would admit it (or believe it), but Jack was always the optimist of their sacred band. Sam saw entropy and Teal'c saw revenge. Daniel saw the dust of empires and knew that all things must die. But Jack always saw the possibility of another sunrise. Maybe he still does.

The blurt of the air-brakes startles him. Daniel wonders if he's been dreaming. If somewhere in that hypnagogic reverie there are answers, or at least conclusions, but...nope. It's the same as it ever was. None of his multiverse doubles told him anything to surprise him, because the universe is a chessboard and they're down to the final moves. Whether the board is set up again is something that won't matter to him. He won't be here to see it.

His attendant bestirs herself to whisk away his glass and tell him to tighten his seatbelt. They're coming in for a landing.

(Jack always liked to play out the endgame.)

(Aces and eights.)

(Sha'mat.)

#


End file.
